4.0 The Battle of Lexandaria
After finally getting out of Laputa and nursing “Mercury” back to consciousness, the party interrogates him. He reveals to them that he is Baygrith's half brother. He was contacting Baygrith to protect him from his mother, Dr. Blackrock, but he doesn't really know her plans in any detail. While there is precious little he can tell the party, he does say that he has something to talk to Baygrith about, but wishes to speak to him privately. Though the party leaves him an Baygrith alone, they do not trust. Sal casts a sound manipulating spell to allow the party to hear the conversation from outside the room. Demonstrating his skill as an actor and con artist, Mercury quickly casts off his pretended weakness and frees himself easily from the restraints he had been placed in. According to Mercury, Dr. Blackrock is the head of a criminal empire. It is her desire to shape Baygrith and Mercury (revealing his true name as Marcus) into people capable of taking her place in the “family business.” To this end, she has been manipulating both of them throughout their entire lives in order to direct the development of their personalities and interests into those proper for leading her criminal empire. She selected Baygrith and Marcus's fathers for particular traits, and even arranged for them to die to help shape their early development. She is a mastermind, at the height of her power when she has time to plan- and she plans for everything. At this point, Marcus' rebelliousness has caused her to label him as a “failed” experiment, and she is willing to sacrifice him to help Baygrith's development. But Marcus wants Baygrith to work with him to overthrow her, rather than play by her games. Baygrith tentatively agrees. Marcus tells him to think it over, and that he would be in touch soon. That said, he used magic to teleport out of the airship. He then demonstrates that he can easily contact the Emitter Torch, and possibly even listen in on a whim. Trying to pretend they did not listen in, the party re-enters the room and begins to discuss what to do about the upcoming Void Spawn attack on Lexandaria. Central to the discussion is the Tooth to which Thain is bound, now in the hands of the Council of Nations. While there is some debate about the issue- Travize (and Timmeron through Travize's telepathy) objecting to theft, the majority of the group decides that it is for the best if they steal the tooth back. Sajaina says that she will take care of retrieving the tooth once they land. On the ground, Timmeron, now free from the Council of Nations, decides to visit home. Tragically, his new body prevents him from being properly recognized and the servants refuse to let him in. Despite trying to demonstrate his identity, the guards are eventually called to escort him to prison until his real identity can be established. The group sends Elizabel to get him out once they land and he soon joins the party in the war room to discuss tactics. The group discusses detailed strategies for the battle, in particular that the main goal will be to defend the city center, which will serve as the main shelter for civilians as well as the command center for the operation. They also make it their goal to track down the red stones used to summon Void Spawn and prevent as many summonings as possible. Additionally, the army could use help preparing mechanical defenses and convincing the nobility to lend some of their personal defense forces to defend the civilians. With the party split to help deal with preparations, there are a few roles of note. Baygrith, for his pat, prepares mechanical traps to scatter around the northern end of the city where Void Spawn may enter. He also develops a potent bomb in case of emergency. Timmeron and Wrynn help with the development of the void-stone tracking device and a magical elixir that will allow for instant, though temporary, training of civilians into soldiers. Travize and Sajaina go to convince Lady “Goldglimmer” Roneyella to contribute her personal forces, but Sajaina and Finnean end up stealing the “codes” to her fleet of automatons instead and ordering them to defend the civilians. Finally, as the rest of the party starts sweeping the civilians storehouses for signs of void-stones, Sajaina sneaks off to steal the Tooth. She quickly discovers that the tooth is being held by the High Justicar of Bartos, which presents a problem for her personally, given her meeting with Steave. Instead of calling over the rest of the group (which might require her to explain why she can't steal the tooth) she decides on an alternate plan. She convinces the High Justicar to let her see her father, Mui'Thel, currently under arrest for impersonating Kebrio at the Council of Nations. It takes some doing, but she eventually convinces the Justicar to let her speak to her father alone, and then devises a plan with him to get the tooth back. In exchange for Mui'Thel's help, Sajaina is to help him escape his imprisonment. So she calls Thain to her, who is immediately taken over by Mui'Thel using a code-phrase he had ordered Thain to respond to. He has Thain steal the tooth from the High Justicar and paralyze him so he can't prevent their escape. But on the way out, Mui'thel unexpectedly stabs the High Justicar in the throat, killing him. Sajaina- who is pretty freaked out at the moment- takes Thain and Mui'Thel back to the Elfatina and decides to hide out there rather than explain events to the rest of the group at the moment. She also Orders Wrynn not to say anything about it until after the battle, since the woman found out when she saw Mui'Thel controlling Thain on the ship. Currently, Mui'Thel still holds Thain's tooth. Wrynn, using a loophole in Sajaina's order, tells Timmeron the basics of the story just so someone knows, resulting in an even deeper falling out between Wrynn and Sajaina. But there is little chance to debate the matter as the party begins finding Void Stones in the civilian shelters. They rush to disable as many of them as possible, preventing four of five stones from being used. But while they are able to close the portal quickly, the Void Spawn have begun attacking the magical shield around the city from without. Bringing more force than expected, the Void Spawn apparently have huge airships the size of sky-scrapers, made all of hewn rock and alien crystals. While the party returns to the command center to discuss what to do about the Void Spawn outside the city, Timmeron goes to talk to Sajaina. They have an unresolved argument rather than a productive conversation- part of the reason Sajaina would rather have mentioned Mui'thel AFTER the battle- before Timmeron return to the command enter. Sajaina elects to continue air support with the Elfatina rather than socialize. Back on the ground, the group decides to drop the shields early so they can engage the enemy on their own terms. They set up their forces and ready themselves to receive the attack. The strategy meeting mentioned that, however the void-spawn ships arrived, the same mechanism may be able to banish them. Sajaina takes the opportunity to drop onto one of the alien, Void-spawn ships in search of whatever mechanism the ship-captains use. Mui'thel, Dal, Karhanza and Thain accompany her. While sneaking through the ship, it is discovered that they use the life-energy of living people for fuel of some kind- including 'civilians' from the Void-Spawn world. Informing the rest of the group, and vowing to at least attempt to free them before destroying the ship, they find their way to the commander's room and, with some difficulty, steal the stone that strengthens the Void-Spawn connection to our world. With some quick help from Wrynn they reverse the enchantment and use it to banish the Void Spawn. What actually happens is the entire ship- Sajaina included- teleports back to the Void-Spawn's home world. On the ground, the fight is going reasonably well, but the other two void-ships are raining down additional portals from which Void-Spawn are entering the city behind the defensive line. The group- alongside the rest of the city's defenders, struggle to hold them back, eventually resorting to Baygrith's bomb to disable an area thick with the horrid, alien creatures. The bomb also destroys several city blocks as well. Other heroic feats include Sal's use of telekinesis to “catch” a bomb dropped by a Void Spawn ship, which he propelled into one of the portals, instantly collapsing it. He needed a little (epic) help from Baygrith and his Explosive Fish to get it at the proper angle, however. Timmeron stole flight from a Void Spawn using his blue magic and confronted one of the Void Ships himself using the Void-Staff to force the ships occupants to kill each other and the Guardian Force (remember that thing? From the old Lich's fallen kingdom?) to protect himself from those he could not control. He claimed another of the teleportation orbs. Travize was able to disable another ship, using None's peculiar property of needing to see the sky to annihilate a small section of the ship, which forced it to land and allowed the defenders to deal with it from the ground. Baygrith also used his new Portal Gun to create escape portals for civilians that found themselves in danger zones, preventing many casualties. Unfortunately, over the course of the battle, there were a few horrible events. For starters, the battle naturally produced huge amounts of collateral damage resulting from Void Spawn attacks, Baygrith's bomb, and several fires that started as a consequence of the methods used to seal some of the other hole. One was closed by detonating a cask of gunpowder in it, for example. Fortunately, despite these events, there were very few civilian casualties. Due to this staggeringly successful preservation of life, it can possibly be said that the worst news is that Timmeron's curse returned to him. Over the remainder of the battle, his entire arm decayed and became a mobile skeleton. In the Other World, Sajaina and Mui'Thel fought desperately for survival. Despite having claimed the teleportation crystal, they found themselves unable to use it to get back. They scrambled to escape the hunting creatures that closed in on them from every corner of the ship, eventually using Sajaina's teleportation Bracelet to walk along the outside of the ship in order to find a place to hide. While Karhanza tried to use the portal orb to create a way home, her chaotic magic was too unpredictable for such delicate work. Fortunately, Travize and Veller were able to get Wrynn to engineer an additional teleportation crystal from one of the downed ships and used it to teleport themselves and one of the Elfatina's scouting vessels into the Void Spawn world to try to find Sajaina. While Travize's telepathy wasn't very useful between the world, once they were on the same world they were able to talk freely. But just as they began to talk, they saw a huge shape rising over the horizon. The colossal Void Spawn queen was coming for them. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Void Spawn “King” let loose a challenging litany of his own, audible from miles away. Ironically, Travize and Veller were able to more easily find Sajaina with the Void Spawn queen as a reference landmark. They traded descriptions of her and used the angles to approximate eachother's location. Sajaina and Mui'Thel teleported from the ship they were on, landing on the ground. They began running in the direction of Veller's skiff. Travize and Veller began flying to rescue Sajaina and company when they noticed the Void Spawn King behind them, flying fast and gaining on the little skiff. Knowing they could not stop him, they aimed for a distraction instead. Travize blew loudly into the Horn of Plenty, summoning enough food to feed all who could hear. As the sound echoed quite far, quite a lot of food was summoned. Tirisean food. Calling on the Tirisean spirits of water that dwelled within the food, Travize whipped the avalanche of food into a wave directed at the King of Void Spawn. It didn't really hurt him, but it did slow him down enough for them to find Sajaina and Mui'Thel. With those two aboard, Veller flew the ship as fast as he could while the Ascendant, Wrynn now included, tried to re-engineer a way home. They finally managed it, but it was a very near thing. For starters, had they been a second later the Void-Spawn King and Queen would have jointly torn the little ship to dust. Back in reality, the four (plus the Ascendant) have a momentary cheerful reunion where Veller accidentally mentions that Sajaina is pregnant. Deciding to discuss that- and what the hell Mui'Thel was doing with Sajaina- later, Travize flew off to help mop up the last of the Void Spawn while Sajaina and company returned to the Elfatina. But things would not be that simple. Wrynn and the rest of the Ascendant rushed to redesign the modified Teleportation Crystal into a banishing weapon so they could finish the fight. But as they were finishing, the sky opened up, a huge portal eclipsing the moon and stars. New horrors joined the battle as the King of Void Spawn descended into the fray. Apparently he id not enjoy his prey escaping, as he was quite angry. Sajaina managed to blast him with the Banishing Ray before he could do much harm, but he slipped through the sky-portal again before Karhanza and Timmeron could fully close it. While he was ready to evade this time, Dal re-wound time for Sajaina so she could aim for where the King would appear rather than trying to hit a moving target. She blasted him again, freeing the remaining defenders to clean up the last of the Void Spawn. The battle was won, with startlingly low civilian casualties. But the group was exhausted. They tiredly moved to help the cleanup and reconnaissance effort, but there was much to discuss. The rescued civilians from the two downed Void Spawn ships (including the Void Spawn civilians) had to be looked after. There was much to talk about, and some discussion to be had about what the Chosen of Astor would do next. How would they deal with Mui'thel? How quickly would Timmeron's curse progress? What stories might the rescues civilians tell? All excellent questions. Category:Quests